School of Life and Environmental Sciences The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia.
Centre for Integrative Ecology School of Life and Environmental Sciences Deakin University, Waurn Ponds, Victoria, 3218, Australia.
Bioessays. 2018 Mar;40(3). doi: 10.1002/bies.201700146. Epub 2018 Feb 15.
Similar to parasites, malignant cells exploit the host for energy, resources and protection, thereby impairing host health and fitness. Although cancer is widespread in the animal kingdom, its impact on life history traits and strategies have rarely been documented. Devil facial tumour disease (DFTD), a transmissible cancer, afflicting Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii), provides an ideal model system to monitor the impact of cancer on host life-history, and to elucidate the evolutionary arms-race between malignant cells and their hosts. Here we provide an overview of parasite-induced host life history (LH) adaptations, then both phenotypic plasticity of LH responses and changes in allele frequencies that affect LH traits of Tasmanian devils in response to DFTD are discussed. We conclude that akin to parasites, cancer can directly and indirectly affect devil LH traits and trigger host evolutionary responses. Consequently, it is important to consider oncogenic processes as a selective force in wildlife.
类似于寄生虫，恶性细胞会利用宿主的能量、资源和保护，从而损害宿主的健康和适应能力。尽管癌症在动物界广泛存在，但很少有文献记录它对生活史特征和策略的影响。恶魔面部肿瘤病（DFTD）是一种传染性癌症，侵袭袋獾（Sarcophilus harrisii），为监测癌症对宿主生活史的影响以及阐明恶性细胞与其宿主之间的进化军备竞赛提供了理想的模型系统。在这里，我们概述了寄生虫引起的宿主生活史（LH）适应，然后讨论了袋獾对 DFTD 的 LH 反应的表型可塑性和影响 LH 特征的等位基因频率变化。我们的结论是，类似于寄生虫，癌症可以直接和间接影响恶魔的 LH 特征，并引发宿主的进化反应。因此，将致癌过程视为野生动物的一种选择力是很重要的。
